Tucking the girls in

One of our youngest girls has decided to go broody.  Every night for almost a week, I have found her in a nest box on the eggs from that day.  I keep taking them from her because we need eggs to eat, but she won't budge.  The last few days there haven't been very many eggs and I'm wondering if she's scared the girls off.

I think this was only confirmed tonight when I found an egg on the ground in the coop.

Clyde's Last Kids

I took these pictures a few days ago but when I looked at them today I realized just how big the babies have gotten.  They're only two months old, and they're just about the same size as Silkie Sue!  The oldest is still hoping that one of these will be a rooster just like Clyde, and I have to say that I'm hoping for the same thing.

Silkie Sue, What Are You Up To?

SilkieSue's youngest babies are getting bigger.  They're no longer tiny puff balls, in fact, as I watched one squeeze out of the chicken run today, I realized they wouldn't be able to fit through very much longer.

We thought these were the last five chicks that would come from Clyde, and we were hoping one would end up being a rooster that looked (and acted) like Clyde.  

But it looks like one of our newer roosters may have gotten to a girl about a month ago....

I hadn't even considered that any of the eggs could have been from one of the other roosters, but there is no way that this white chick came from Clyde.

I also noticed that SilkieSue's back feathers are finally starting to grow back in, over a year after they were broken off by Clyde.

 And then I went back to the coop tonight to count the birds.  I saw SilkieSue sitting up on the roost and I thought this was strange so I looked down in the corner where she's been staying with the babies.

I was missing a chick so I looked back up at SilkieSue.

How the heck did she get that chick up there?!

Chick Freedom

Silkie Sue lead her chicks outside today.  We found them about 100 feet away from the coops.

They're small enough to slip through the fence

Thirsty little boogers

They weren't able to follow Silkie Sue back into the coop because it's too high, so after she went in and they wouldn't follow her, she came back out and nestled down with them in the corner of the chicken run.  We had to spend some time catching them to get them all back into the coop.

And now for a cute video of chicks learning to find bugs....

SilkieSue isn't such a bad mom

This second time around, SilkieSue is actually doing very well with the job of mom to her five chicks.

Can you spot three chicks?

Teaching him how to eat

Two chicks

We actually watched her pick up feed from the bowl and then drop it on the ground in front of the chicks.